1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a symbol display device, mounted in a game machine, to display information of the game.
2. Description Related to the Prior Art
There are symbol display device for a game machine that rotates a mechanical reel having symbols arranged on the periphery thereof, or uses display devices such as CRT or liquid crystal display to simulate the rotation of the reel. As described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publications No. H07-000612 and 2002-224265, some symbol display devices have a light emission diode (LED) array to display symbols based on afterimage effect.
A roulette game machine has a rotary disk type symbol display device that rotates a rotary disk on which plural symbols are arranged. After the rotary disk stops the rotation at a predetermined timing, the symbol display device determines the win or the loss in accordance with the symbol indicated by an indicator. Such rotary disk type symbol display device is mounted in a Pachinko game machine or a slot game machine to determine the amount of dividend coins or the odds of the dividend coins in a sub game, for example.
Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-370702, filed by the applicant, describes a rotary disk type symbol display device for a roulette game machine that displays symbols or messages by utilizing afterimage effect of the LED array. The rotary disk type symbol display device is composed of a large rotary disk that carries symbols on the periphery thereof and a small rotary disk with the LED array. The large rotary disk and a small rotary disk are placed concentrically. While the rotary disk is rotating, the symbol display device drives the LED array to display symbols or messages by utilizing afterimage effect. Thereby, it is possible to provide various display patterns that improve appeal effect to a player.
In the rotary disk type symbol display device, however, afterimage effect is utilized only to display the symbols or messages that do not affect the result of the game. Thus, such symbol display device can not provide various game types, since the game result is determined in the same way as the symbol display device without utilizing afterimage effect.